Blog Post #11: finishing touches

This week, I decided on what song I will be presenting for my Ted Talks. I have decided on playing the very first song I learned because it was the song I knew how to play the best. Also, my mom has decided to help me with my presentation by singin along when I present. This week, I also bought a Kapo on Amazon. I expect it to arrive this Friday, and by using this I can play a wider variety of songs. One of my strings on my guitar broke, but it was expected to happen because my guitar is relatively old. Hopefully my dad and I will go to the music store soon to buy some new strings.

Blog Post #10: Another song complete

This week, I started and finished another song. The song was told to be kind of difficult, so I just adjusted some of the chords the song required to make it easier for myself. All I need to learn is pacing myself and being consistent. I also expanded my list if songs I want to learn, so over the summer I can do something with my free time. After looking at multiple songs and trying them out, I learned that I have gotten better in transitioning between chords. It use to take me about a week to become at least mediocre at transitioning, but now it only takes me about a day. I have set a new goal for myself also. I want to learn an perform 4 different songs before the school year ends.

Blog post #9: practice makes perfect

This week, since I was gone for the weekend, I did not have the time to start looking for a new song to learn. So I just practiced all the song chords I did know, trying to perfect the transitions and the rhythm. I also experimented with some songs I did know, trying new strumming patterns that might make the song sound better in my opinion. Throughout the weeks of searching YouTube, I learned that a wide variety of the songs I wanted to learn required a kapo. This costs aroud $30, and I plan on buying one soon.

Blog Post #8: New Song???

I have done it. I have now learned to consistently play a song without messing up. I learned to transition between chords well, and that has also helped with my transitioning in other songs. Now that I have learned how to play a song well, I don't know what song I should learn next. I've been learning pieces of songs, but I always end up looking for another song to learn because the song is either too hard or I lose interest in that song. I've been looking through my playlists and YouTube for another song to start learning, but so far I have had no luck.

Blog Post #7: One Song completed

This past week, I was able to fully learn a whole song. I am very proud of myself, even though I still need to practice the song some more to perfect it. I still mess up a little bit as I play, mainly when I transition between chords, but I fully memorized the order or the chords and the strumming pattern. Hopefully I can perfect it within the month. I also started learning a new song, this time a finger style pattern. There is no strumming involved, as it is all plucking strings with your fingers. It is very challenging, but it is a song I really like and I know that I want to learn it eventually.

Blog Post #6: no progress

For this week, I think that I have practiced playing guitar for a maximum of 1 hour. I was very busy this week, and I had little time to practice. This week was a step back in my progress, for I had forgotten some of the chords I had learned before. Hopefully for this next week with Spring Break, I can relearn all of the skills I had forgotten while continuing my progress in playing guitar.

Blog Post #5: Progress is Slow

After about a month of teaching myself to play guitar almost every other day, I feel that I haven made as much progress as I should have. Some of the chords I play from songs for sound like the song itself. I know that it will be extremely hard for it to sound exactly the same, but I feel that it could be better. Also, I am finding it hard to stick to learning one song at a time. I find myself switching songs that I want to learn, mainly because I don't like to be repetitive and play the same thing over and over again. I know that by doing this, I won't be able to fully get better at a song. Hopefully with spring break coming soon, I can focus on learning guitar more.

Blog Post #4: Challenges

This past week, I have been slowed down in my progression in my pursuit in learning how to play guitar by a wrist injury. I probably sustained the injury by writing too much (thanks teachers), as when I finished all my homework on Sunday I felt the pain in my wrist. Despite this, I noticed that my transition from chord to chord has become smoother, but it still needs work. My dad taught me a little tune that should help me with transitioning between chords, and I feel that it has helped me develop my guitar playing. Hopefully my wrist will heal soon and I can get back on track on my project.

Blog Post #3: StrengthsFinder 2.0

The Strength I will implement into my 20% Project will be consistency. Playing guitar and consistency naturally connect because to be able to play guitar well, you must be consistent while playing a song. If you are not consistent while playing a song, the song will not sound as good. I am also utilizing consistency in my schedule of practice. I have a set schedule in when I will practice playin guitar. I think that out of my top 5 strengths, only consistency applies to my 20% project. I feel like I am making progress with a consistent practice schedule and consistency will help me learn as many songs as I can. 

Blog Post 2: The Struggle is Real

Unfortunately and due to other people telling me otherwise, I was not able to change the strings of the guitar during class time. I was told by numerous people that it was an easy task. But after reading about how to do it, i realized it is harder than what everyone said it was. I have to postpone my string removal until I have free time and when I have experienced help on it. I will either ask Aaron for some help, or my dad if he's not too busy. My dad also plays guitar, and he was the person who got me interested in the first place.

So instead of my original plan of restringing the guitar during class time, I decided to look for easy-looking songs to learn how to play. I found a website that provided basic chords for beginners to learn, and they also had very easy and easy songs for beginners to learn how to play. I found numerous songs that I was interested in playing, and I watched YouTube videos on people playing those specific songs on guitar. I found four songs that looked easy to play, and when I got home, I practiced playing the first two chords the website recommended for beginners to learn. 

Blog Post 1: The Road to the Big Stage

I am very late in starting this project due to illness, but it shouldn't be too hard to get back on track. I have decided that my 20% Project will be to learn how to play the guitar. When I was 9ish, I was receiving lessons from a private tutor to learn how to play. Time passed by, and I started to lose interest in playing guitar. So, I quit. 

I still have the very same guitar today, but my dad switched the strings to fit a right-handed person. I have no idea on how to switch the strings, so that will be the very first thing I need to do. Next will be re-learning how to play simple chords. I know that learning how to play the guitar can be time consuming. Learning how to play a full song will be difficult and it may take a long time, so I will first start off with a simple, short song. I don't know how long that will take, but hopefully I can learn quickly.